As early as 1965, exponential growth of computer technology was recognized by Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Intel® corporation, who suggested that computer processing power will double roughly every 18 months. This prediction became known as Moore's law, and while the exact teachings and implications of it have been debated, it has remained remarkably accurate, more or less, for decades. In the case of non volatile mass storage, typically disk drives, storage capability continues to grow at exponential rates.
The modern implications of such growth is that vast amounts of information may feasibly be stored on a device as small and portable as a PC, laptop, or even a cellphone. Disk drives that once resembled a washing machine in size are now outperformed by a 2.5 inch laptop disk. The availability of such extensive data storage, however, may create an equally extensive task when that data needs to be deleted. Certain contexts require deletion of sensitive data, due to security or privacy concerns, for example, and also impose a need for verification of such deletion. Such deletion therefore presents a nontrivial matter with large quantities of data.